As
libel trial enters third week, defence witness says there is
no doubt of Nazis' mass murder

Irving: gas chambers 'not
used for killing'

BY SIMON ROCKER

RIGHT-WING historian David Irving claimed in the
High Court this week that buildings at Auschwitz
identified as gas chambers had been used for fumigating
corpses rather than killing people.

He also advanced the theory that buildings where traces
of cyanide were found soon after the war had been designed
for delousing clothes and other objects, or as air-raid
shelters.

As his libel
action against American academic Professor Deborah
Lipstadt and Penguin books entered its third week, Mr.
Irving stuck to his line that there was no proof of mass
gassings of Jews at the camp.

He is suing the author and the publisher over claims in
her book, 'Denying the Holocaust," that he is a
Holocaust-denier who has bent historical evidence to suit
his views.

When
asked by defence QC Richard Rampton
[right] if he didn't
think all the available evidence suggested the existence of
"homicidal gas chambers," Mr. Irving's blunt reply was
"No."

"Historians have retrieved hundreds of thousands of
documents I from archives]," he added, "and we are
entitled to at least one explicit, non-ambiguous ...
document which would give us the clear smoking gun. That
document does not exist."

He disputed the significance of cyanide traces taken from
ventilation grilles and human hair from Auschwitz by a
Polish forensic laboratory in 1945.

The building where the samples where found was used for
"'fumigating objects and cadavers," he contended. When asked
why there was any need to delouse corpses about to be
incinerated, he suggested that the bodies had been fully
clothed and needed to be fumigated before gold teeth and
other objects were removed from them.

Macabre details emerged during cross-examination over the
amount of hydrogen cyanide required to kill a human being --
and how much the fat in corpses speeds up their
inciner-ation.

Mr. Irving stood by his publication in 1989 of a
report
by Fred Leuchter, a consultant on execution methods
in America, which claimed scientific proof for disputing the
existence of mass gassings at Auschwitz. Having taken
samples from the camp in 1988, Mr. Leuchter had found
relatively small traces of cyanide in the gas chamber ruins
compared to far higher deposits in delousing areas.

Pointing out that 22 times as much gas was needed to kill
lice than human beings, Mr. Rampton accused Mr. Irving of
knowing the Leuchter report was "bunk" and "not worth the
paper it was written on."

Although acknowledging that there were flaws in the
report, Mr. Irving maintained that subsequent tests had
confirmed Mr. Leuchter's findings.

Judge warns
Irving

BY LEE LEVITT

HISTORIAN David Irving railed on Wednesday against what
he termed the "wellfunded ... Holocaust education business"
as his libel action against Professor Deborah Lipstadt and
Penguin Books continued in the High Court.

Mr. Irving launched his attack while cross-examining
Dutch historian Professor Robert van Pelt, co-author
of a history of Auschwitz with American academic Professor
Deborah Dwork.

He claimed that Professor Dwork, at Clark University, had
obtained $5 million to finance her chair, and for library,
student and other grants.

"It has become big business, and it's not just me who has
said this. The Chief Rabbi of England said it once," Mr.
Irving claimed. "There are all sorts of profitable
sidelines."

But Professor van Pelt told the court: "Professor Dwork
does not profit. We got [a research grant of]
£15,000 to write the book."

Mr. Irving was earlier warned to "keep an eye on
realities" by the judge, Mr. Justice Gray, after an exchange
with Professor van Pelt in which he had queried at length
the mechanics of what he termed an "alleged gas chamber" at
Auschwitz. He maintained the chamber was being "converted
for use as an underground air-raid shelter" in the event of
allied attack.

Mr. Irving is suing Professor Lipstadt and Penguin over
allegations in her book, "Denying the Holocaust," that he
had twisted history.

The case continues.

Professor in clashes over
deaths at camp

BY BERNARD JOSEPHS

A CHILLING description of conditions at
Auschwitz-Birkenau was heard on Tuesday when a
world-renowned expert on the Holocaust gave evidence in the
Irving case.

Dutch historian Professor Robert van Pelt -- who has
written a history of Auschwitz and also served as an adviser
to the Polish authorities on the reconstruction of the site
-- said the camp had been at the "centre of human
suffering."

He told the court that there was overwhelming evidence
that one million Jews had been exterminated there by the
Nazis. He described in detail how victims would be selected
either for work in the main camp, or for death in a gas
chamber.

It had come mainly from survivors' eyewitness reports and
statements from SS officer Pery Broad and the camp
commandant, Rudolf Hoss, who gave details of gassings
and the burning of corpses, the professor replied.

It was a "moral certainty" that the Nazis had killed
around one million people at Auschwitz with "the help of gas
chambers," then incinerated their bodies in crematoria and
burning pits. Their remains were scattered on what became
known as the "field of ashes."

Professor van Pelt recalled picking up fragments of bones
in the area, adding: "All the ashes in general were combined
with crushed bones and dumped into the river. In winter,
they were thrown on to icy roads to help vehicles."

Mr. Irving questioned the witness about the tasks of Jews
who were forced to help the Nazis deal with the victims of
the gas chambers.

They were employed to keep order in the "undressing
room," to "help put people in the gas chambers" and to
"bring corpses for incineration," the professor
explained.

How could such people "survive with their debt of shame?"
Mr. Irving asked, adding: "There may be a tendency to
romanticise in their recollections."

The professor dismissed Mr. Irving's suggestion that the
incinerators at Auschwitz had been designed to deal with the
dead from a typhus epidemic that raged through the camp.

They had been designed to dispose of four-fifths of the
camp population each month, he declared. "It is absurd to
use the typhus epidemic to justify the building of the
incinerators."

There was a sharp exchange over whether the remains of a
crematorium indicated that it had also been used as a gas
chamber.

Mr. Irving said there was no evidence of holes in the
roof of the building through which the Nazis were said to
have dropped cyanide pellets.

Professor van Pelt countered that the building had been
destroyed by the Nazis in an effort to cover up the evidence
of their atrocities.